


Revelations

by Em_Jaye



Series: The Long Way Around [16]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Blow Jobs, F/M, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Porn With Plot, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Sex, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Time Travel Fix-It, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-09-30 18:41:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20451770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/pseuds/Em_Jaye
Summary: Woody Allen once said, 'If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." With that in mind, Darcy had to wonder if there was anyone who could make God laugh quite like Steve Rogers.January 1973: A breakthrough. Of sorts.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for all the kindness in your comments on the last fic--it means the world that you guys are liking this stuff even when I'm not 100% crazy about it. 
> 
> My 32nd birthday is tomorrow and, I gotta be honest, writing this particular chapter of this two part deal was like a little birthday gift to myself. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

This was not good. Definitely not good. The opposite of good, in fact. Darcy’s knees bent beneath her as she lowered herself carefully to the edge of her bed and brought a tentative hand to her neck. She grit her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut as a white-hot current of pain shot down the right side of her back when she tried to turn her head.

“Oh shit,” she breathed, wincing with the effort it took to even take a deep breath. How had her neck gotten so stiff so fast? Quickly, and trying not to move, she mentally ran through her day again. She’d been fine all day at work—a little sore from how she’d slept, but nothing out of the ordinary. Then she’d come home and taken a shower and fallen asleep for twenty minutes…

And now she could barely move.

She tried to move her head again and was unable to help the cry that clawed up from her throat before she sucked her breath back in and considered her options.

She could try to deep-breathe her way through the pain and pray that her muscles relaxed on their own. A feat that had never once happened in her twenty-seven years of life, but it was always worth the hope.

She could ask for help and get Steve to do what Jane had always done and throw his weight into her shoulder until the knot went away and she could move again.

Or she could compose a will and wait to die from the pain and anguish it was taking to even consider turning her head. Which, at the rate she was suffering, would be about another half hour.

“Fuck it,” she said and gingerly pushed herself up and off her bed. She eased her way down the short hallway and knocked on the closed door at the end of the hall. “Steve?” she called. “Are you wearing clothes? I need your help.”

The door flew open almost immediately. Steve, she was relieved to see, was fully clothed and looking concerned. “What’s wrong?”

With a hand still uselessly clamped to her neck and unable to look any higher than his collarbone, Darcy winced. “Uh, my neck? It’s…immobile.”

“What happened?”

“It gets like this sometimes,” she whined. “It hasn’t been this bad for a long time but every now and then it—” her words dropped off in a sharp gasp of pain when Steve’s hand landed tentatively on her shoulder. “Fuuuuuck,” she hissed when he backed off. “Don’t do that.”

“I’m confused,” he said, ducking his head to look at her. “Is it your neck or your shoulder?”

“It’s my shoulder,” she said through gritted teeth. “It gets all knotted up and then I can’t move my neck.”

His hands still up, hovering near her, but not too close, Steve looked apprehensive. “Do you need to go to the ER?”

“No, no,” she waved her free hand. “I just need you to like—I don’t know—jam a super-soldier elbow into the knots and break them up.”

“That…can’t actually be helpful,” he said slowly.

“No,” she assured him. “It is. I’ve done it a million times and it’s the only way to get make this stop. Please?”

“Uh—”

“_Please_?” she implored a second time. “If I don’t take care of this now, I’m not going to be able to go to work tomorrow.”

“Okay, okay,” he said hurriedly. “Come here,” he moved from the door and beckoned her inside. “Do you want to sit—or lie down—”

“I’ll just sit on the floor,” she groaned, reaching out a hand for his bedpost. “You get above me and put as much weight on the muscle as you can.”

She eased herself down onto the floor beside his bed and waited for him slide in behind her. His knees bracketed her arms and she felt his hand around hers, gently pulling her palm away from her neck. “Okay,” he said with hesitation. “But you’re going to have to tell me when it’s too much,” he warned. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

She winced and gave a thumbs up with her other hand. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she muttered. “Red light, yellow light, green light. Got it. Just pull the trigger.”

He didn’t start with an elbow the way that Jane always had. He ran a thumb experimentally from the base of her skull down the right side of her neck. She took in a sharp breath when he flattened his whole palm over her shoulder blade and pressed the heel of his hand lightly against the worst of the knots. “You should really go to a professional,” he said, easing off the pressure when she winced again. “This is really bad.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she groused, swallowing back a yelp of pain when he pressed both thumbs into the heart of the tangled muscle. He stopped. “Green light,” she assured him. “You’re just going to have to deal with me whining the whole time you do this.”

“I expect nothing less,” he said with a smile and resumed his tentative pressure.

“Seriously,” she said after another minute. “You’re gonna have to hurt me to fix this. Could you please put like, a third of those gigantic biceps to good use?” He didn’t say anything, but to her relief, he increased the pressure, swiping down and out with his thumbs to ease a little relaxation into her posture. Her sweater was becoming a problem—the thick wool bunched beneath his palms and dragged uncomfortably against her skin. “Hang on,” she said and pulled her good arm inside the sleeve and pushed the left side up to her shoulder. “Help me with this side?”

“Careful,” Steve said and carefully slid the sweater over her head and away from her right arm before he tossed it aside. The camisole she had on underneath offered no impediment when he returned both hands to her right shoulder, one massaging the top, the other pressing deep into the most troublesome spot. She tried to clench her jaw and muffle another groan, but she wasn’t quick enough. Steve eased off. “Color check?”

She cracked open an eye. “Yellow?”

Proceeding with caution, Steve pressed again on the knot and her vision went white. “Red light!” she cried, grabbing a handful of his pant leg. “Red light.”

“Okay,” he said quickly and stopped immediately. “Sorry,” he murmured as she released her grip on his leg. He slid the hand that had been attacking the knot to her other shoulder and switched his tactic to simply rub both of her shoulders with the same, light pressure. “Better?”

“Mmhmm,” she hummed once the pain had eased. “Back to green.”

Steve’s thumbs swiped down the slope of her neck again. “I get why your shoulders are so stiff,” he said without stopping. “But why the hell is the rest of you so tense?”

Darcy stuttered out a weak laugh as her mind went blank. _Because this feels _too_ good,_ she could have said. _Because I don’t want you to stop. _“Just…y’know,” she managed, feeling like she couldn’t breathe. “Usual stress.”

“Try and relax,” he said, his voice a little lower than it had been before. “Or this isn’t going to help.”

“It’s helping,” she squeaked, her own voice alarmingly high before she cleared her throat and tried again. “I promise.”

Maybe it wasn’t helping her neck, but it was helping other parts. Whatever Steve was doing to her shoulders was sending all kinds of pleasantries to the tips of her fingers and toes. His hands were so warm and each brush of his palms against her skin sent a slow, almost lazy wave of heat to her belly, melting her touch-by-touch from the inside.

All of which was completely.

Totally.

Not okay.

Because this was _Steve_ who was turning her, slowly but surely, into a puddle. _Steve _who was the only person in the world she could trust and depend on one hundred percent. Who knew everything about her. Her _best fucking friend_.

Steve with his soft eyes and ridiculously hard muscles and the kind of laugh that made her want to join in. Who made her feel funny and capable and told her when she looked nice and let her tease him all she wanted.

Steve who looked so good naked it should be a crime to make him wear clothes.

He stopped abruptly and her eyes snapped open. “What—um—” he coughed. “I don’t know what kind of sound that was. Good or bad.”

Darcy’s cheeks blazed. “Uh…good?” she croaked, forcing her thoughts back to the present. “Still green.” No more unscheduled moans to slip past her lips at the thought of Steve naked. She wasn’t thinking about that. She was thinking about the here and now. She was in pain and Steve was helping her out.

Only, she realized abruptly, she wasn’t really in pain. Not anymore. The muscle knot—which had been like a ball of fire beneath her shoulder blade—didn’t feel nearly as tight. And when Steve gently dragged his hands from her shoulders up her neck and said, “Relax, okay?” before he placed his hands over her ears and carefully rotated her head in a slow circle, her movements were painless and almost completely back to normal.

She could have cried in relief when Steve coaxed her in another circle the opposite direction and she felt one last pop of tension disappear from somewhere between her shoulders. He slid his hands back down her neck, taking his time and applying more gently pressure to the tendons at the base of her skull before he returned to her shoulders, carefully soothing any remaining aches and pains beneath his palms. She let out a heavy sigh of relief when her upper back finally relaxed. “Thank you,” she breathed.

“Feel better?” he asked, though he hadn’t stopped yet.

Darcy swallowed around her dry throat. “Mmhmm,” she managed, aware of how her heart had started to pound the longer they stayed like this.

“So, I should…stop then,” Steve said slowly, as his hands moved from her shoulders to the middle of her back. “If you’re feeling better.”

She bit her lip and closed her eyes. “Yeah,” she said around an exhale. Far breathier than she meant to sound. “If you want to.”

“If _I_ want to,” she heard him repeat softly, barely under his breath. The circles he’d been drawing between her shoulder blades with his thumbs dipped down another few inches. Far enough that he could tell—if he hadn’t already—that she wasn’t wearing a bra. “What do _you _want, Darcy?”

It would have been embarrassing how hearing him say her name like that—in that low voice she’d only heard a few times before—sent a rush of heat straight through her if she’d been with anyone else. But this wasn’t anyone else. This was Steve. He’d never made her feel embarrassed about anything. If anything, he made her feel brave.

Brave enough that she drew in a long, slow inhale and said, “I want you to keep going.”

Steve’s hands stuttered against her back before he moved back up to give her shoulders another squeeze before he trailed them lightly over her upper arms. “Darcy,” he said slowly, like her name was something new he’d never tasted before. “What are you—”

She steeled herself for him to stop completely. To pull back and tell her this was a bad idea. That he wasn’t interested. That they should talk and definitely _not _keep going.

But he didn’t stop touching her, he only pulled gently on her arm to convince her to turn around to face him. She let him turn her around and sank back onto her heels, willing her heart not to jump out of her chest as she dared herself to say what she wanted. To not chicken out. To see what might happen if he wanted it too.

He was still holding her at arms’ length when he met her gaze. Darcy wet her lips and brought her hands up to rest on his thighs. She searched his face quickly, looking for a sign of rejection or disinterest. She didn’t find any in his eyes, in the slight flush on his cheeks, in the slight part of his lips.

He blinked first. “I’m just…” his throat bobbed when he swallowed, “looking for clarification.”

She felt herself nod and open her mouth to say something—anything—that might articulate how she was feeling or what she actually wanted. But she caught the way Steve’s eyes dropped to her lips before they returned to her eyes and her mind went blank. She surged up on her knees and took his face in her hands, pulling his lips to hers.

She’d meant for it to be a quick kiss. A kiss from which she could pull away and search his expression for a sign that this was okay—that he wanted this too. But the moment Steve’s lips met hers, after half a second of surprise before he relaxed and tightened his grip on her arms, Darcy couldn’t imagine ever being able to pull away. His mouth was soft and warm; his lips fit perfectly with hers as he moved with a gentle insistence, hinting at hunger simmering just beneath the surface that she thought might rival her own. Darcy sighed into his mouth as she sank her fingers into hair and let him pull her closer until her lungs started to sting and she broke away breathless.

She kept him close as she caught her breath, not wanting to let him go, unable to take her eyes from his. “Is that—” she exhaled around a nervous smile, “is that clear enough?”

The smile the curved the corner of Steve’s lips only fanned the fire that had started in her belly. He shook his head, his nose brushing against hers. “Not even close,” he said before he pulled her in again and covered her lips with his. He stood and pulled her to her feet in one swift movement to crush her close to his chest before he sat further back on his bed and let her climb into his lap.

Darcy reached up and pulled her hair out of its bun and let her dark, messy curls fall down her back. Steve’s arms circled around her, his short nails raking up and down her spine before his hands slipped beneath her thin camisole and he flattened his palms against the small of her back. Darcy wound her arms back around his neck and fit herself tighter against him, unable to help the soft, needy sounds escaping her lips. With her heart still racing and her breath growing shorter, her head was starting to feel light; she couldn’t tell if it was from her erratic breathing or from the relief of finally having Steve’s lips on her and his hands roaming under her clothes, setting her skin alight with goosebumps everywhere he touched her.

She shortened her kisses, pulling back a little each time she broke away to see if he’d lean in for more. He chased her every time, meeting her lips with more intensity with each kiss until she heard a low rumble that sounded almost like frustration from his chest and she sank back into him, happily opening her mouth beneath his when she felt his tongue swipe at her bottom lip. He moaned against her; a low sound that she could feel down to the tips of her toes that only stoked that fire inside her more.

Her hands slid from his shoulders to the buttons on his shirt, working to undo them without having to break from his kisses. She was halfway done when he covered her fingers with his and pulled back, leaving them both gasping for air. “What is it?” she asked, sitting up straight. “Are you okay?”

He exhaled around a shaky laugh. “That’s…an understatement. I—” he let out another quick breath and reached up to hold her face in his hands before he shook his head. “Are you sure about this?”

Darcy wet her lips again, swollen and almost bruised from Steve’s, they felt even fuller than usual. She smiled softly and held his hand to her cheek so she could turn and press a kiss to his palm before she grabbed hold of the hem of her remaining top layer and yanked it over her head, dropping it to the floor with her discarded sweater. “Do I not seem sure?” she asked.

Steve’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open a fraction of an inch. She willed herself not to be self-conscious as he raked his gaze over her chest before he met her eyes again. He reached up a second time and pushed her hair out of her face before he pulled her back down for another kiss.

Slower this time. The frantic pace from a minute ago was gone as his hands dragged back down her neck. She breathed out a soft moan as one arm went around her back to keep her steady on his lap and the other hand slipped down her chest to palm her breasts. She squirmed against him, trying to deliver some kind of relief to the almost painful tension building between her thighs. He didn’t stop her this time when she returned to his buttons and freed him from his shirt and the t-shirt he wore beneath it.

His skin against hers was intoxicating; warm and unmarred miles of hard muscles and soft touches. She let him push her hair to one side and nudge her head to the right to begin a trail of kisses along her neck. He teased her in between when he learned where she was ticklish, alternating between kisses and quick nips of his teeth that had her smothering back squeals and wriggling closer against him. His hand drifted lower and popped the buttons on her jeans as he sucked at a spot on her neck, dragging a sigh of pleasure from her lips.

Her sighs dropped into another satisfied groan when Steve slipped his hand into her open jeans and beneath the waistband of her panties. He cupped her gently, experimentally, before he pulled back from her neck and met her eyes. “Still green?” he asked with a half-smile.

Darcy smiled and tried to shift to press harder against him. “I swear to God, Steve, if you don’t touch m—” her threat died on her lips when he moved his fingers against her and slipped easily between her thighs to find her hot and wet and waiting. She had to bite her lip to muffle back an embarrassingly loud moan.

In the tight space between them, Steve managed to move his fingers as he stretched his neck up to capture her lips with another kiss. “You’re so wet,” he breathed against her lips as he found and slowly circled her clit with the hand trapped between them.

Darcy nodded and pressed down harder into his touch. “Steve—” she sighed, grateful when he caught the rhythm of her hips grinding down onto his fingers and sped up his movement against her clit to match. “Steve, I’m so close—” she whispered before pulling her lip back between her teeth around a whimper.

“Open your eyes,” he said, pulling back from the kiss she’d been about to lean into. When she did, he ran his other hand up her back and held it at the back of her neck, dropping her forehead onto his. “I want you to look at me.”

She kept her eyes locked on his while she moved her hips faster against his fingers. Her hands fell to his shoulders and her mouth fell open as the promise of release began to build. In the gray afternoon light, Steve’s pupils were fat with lust, his cheeks were flushed, and his lips were wet and pink and swollen from her kisses. Darcy was certain he’d never looked more beautiful. Her rhythm faltered and two more strokes of his fingers was all it took to send her over the edge. His grip on the back of her neck tightened and she forced her eyes to stay on his as a wave of pleasure crested over her and broke with a sob in the back of her throat.

She sank down against him, breathless and with limbs that felt like jelly. Steve’s fingers slowed to a stop and he carefully pulled his hand from between them before he released her neck and cupped her cheek to pull her in for another long, slow kiss. Their heavy breathing passed like hushed whispers between them when Steve pulled away and asked, “More?”

Darcy swallowed and nodded with a slow smile. “More.”

Steve’s arms tightened around her and he half-flipped, half-threw her onto the bed behind him. She landed with a heavy bounce and couldn’t help the giggles that bubbled up in her chest as Steve pulled her remaining clothes off and dropped them onto the floor. Flushed and still a little dizzy, Darcy made grabby hands at him, making him smile while he undid his belt. She cleared her head enough to get back onto her knees so she could push his hands away and undo his pants herself.

Steve’s sigh of relief cut through her as she freed his cock and pushed his pants and boxers over his hips. He kicked them the rest of the way off before Darcy could no longer help herself and leaned down to give the head of his cock a slow, teasing lick. His hand went into her hair almost immediately and Darcy could feel him fighting the urge to pull her mouth back down on him. She glanced up with a smirk and teased him with her tongue again. “Darcy…” he groaned. She let him pull her down as she took him in her mouth, pleased with the strangled moan she’d drawn from him with only a few flicks of her tongue. But just as she was learning his most sensitive spots, Steve tugged on her hair and pulled her off him.

“What—”

He silenced her question with a deep kiss, holding her face again and slowly circling her tongue with his before he pulled away. “I need to be inside you,” he murmured.

Darcy felt her stomach flip in anticipation, and she nodded, brushing her nose against his. “Please,” she breathed around her pounding heart. “Don’t make me wait anymore.”

They moved back onto the bed together and Steve caged his arms around her, careful not to rest his full weight against her. Her legs opened and wrapped loosely around his waist. The tip of his cock brushed at her entrance as he leaned down and captured her lips again. He rocked into her slowly, inch by inch until he was seated fully inside of her. Darcy gasped against his mouth as their hips touched and he stilled, giving her a chance to adjust to the stretch of him inside her.

“Fuck,” she hissed when he began to move, pulling out just as slowly before he pushed in again. “That feels so good.”

She felt Steve smile as he pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Yeah it does,” he agreed in a rough whisper. To her relief he only maintained his punishingly slow pace for a few more thrusts before he started to move faster, and the friction and pace brought with it another slow burn of tension began to build within her again.

Without warning, Steve grabbed hold of her hips and rolled them again, so she was on top. Darcy gasped at the sudden shift of his cock inside of her and went with him when he lowered her further down on top of him, stimulating a different spot than before. She reached out and grabbed onto his headboard for leverage as he gripped her thighs tight enough to leave bruises and fucked himself deeply up into her.

She was losing her breath and each thrust pulled a short, breathy moan from her swollen lips. When Steve’s hand left her hip and slipped between them, seeking her clit again, she cried out in relief and dropped her grip on the headboard. Her head fell back as her orgasm rushed over her in a wave of warm, tingling pleasure she felt all the way down to her toes and—

Darcy’s eyes fluttered open with a gasp of surprise as she came over her own fingers that had slid between her thighs while she she’d slept. Confusion battling pleasure, she pushed herself up shakily onto one arm while she pulled her soaked other hand from her panties. She was still breathing hard as she sat all the way up and settled her racing heart before it dropped to the floor and her dream returned to the forefront of her memory.

Sweat and skin and hot, open mouths against racing pulses and—

Steve.

Darcy felt her eyes widen as the visions replayed themselves. Steve’s lips on hers. His fingers rubbing slick circles around her clit. His cock in her mouth, throbbing beneath her tongue.

“Oh no…” she moaned into her hands as she covered her face and shook her head. “Nononononono…”

This was _definitely _not good.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly didn't mean to take so long with this second part! Blame birthday festivities and my muses and bunnies deciding they needed a break after a rather busy summer. Thank you all for the wonderful messages and well-wishes for the big 3-2! You made it such a fun day!

This was really not good.

Darcy stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. She looked…also not good, she decided with a frown.

Like she hadn’t slept—which she hadn’t. And like the source of her insomnia was a _vivid_ _as hell_ wet dream about one of the only men in the entire world she should absolutely _not _be having wet dreams about—which it was.

She let the cold water run before she bent and splashed some on her face. “You’re fine,” she told her reflection. “It was just a stupid dream.” She patted her face with the hand towel and spared herself one last glance before she hung the towel back up and flipped off the lights as she pulled open the door.

And crashed directly into Steve’s bare chest.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” she exclaimed, backing up against the wall, a hand to her heart.

He held up his hands defensively. “Hey,” he blinked sleepily. “It’s just me.”

“I know,” she said, a little too harshly. “What are you doing?”

Steve’s brow furrowed and he looked around the small hallway. “Uh, last I checked, we only had the one bathroom, Darce.”

“Oh,” she exhaled and felt a rush of embarrassment. “Right. Sorry.”

He studied her for another moment, tilting his head in the dark. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said quickly. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” his hands went up again briefly. “I was just making sure. It sounded like you were having a nightmare.”

She felt her face flush again as another wave of crystal-clear memories crested in her mind again. Memories of Steve’s fingers digging into her thighs. His teeth scraping playfully against her neck. What kind of sounds had she been making? How loud did she have to be for Steve to hear her through the wall? “Well, I wasn’t,” she said finally. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” he repeated, uncertain. “My mistake.”

With her cheeks still burning, Darcy’s eyes betrayed her when they dropped back to Steve’s chest. Hard lines of muscles. Sparse, but surprisingly dark hair. “It’s four o’clock in the morning; I’m going back to bed,” she muttered, shaking her head, desperate to get back to the safety of her room and hide until she could get her stupid brain back under control. “And could you put a shirt on?” she asked as he stepped out of the way to let her pass. “It’s freezing.”

She didn’t have to turn around to see his face contort in confusion. “Good morning to you, too.” 

That was the start of a very long week.

A week that had Darcy’s already busy mind teaming up with her anxiety for a ‘round the clock fixation on what her subconscious had done to her.

Rationally, she’d told herself a million times that her subconscious had not done _anything _to her. Nothing had changed. Everything was exactly the way it had been before she’d been visited by the sex dream fairy; except that now, every time she and Steve bumped into each other in their cramped apartment, she was fighting to keep her flush in check and doing her best to shove back a barrage of vivid images from her dreams.

And they were bumping into each other a _lot_. The apartment had always been a little too small for the two of them, but over the next week, Darcy lost track of how many times they unsuccessfully tried to zig-zag past each other in the hallway. At least twice they’d gotten stuck in the kitchen, walking circles around each other in a clumsy, awkward waltz, each trying to get out of the other’s way while making coffee or doing the dishes. It was exhausting trying to stay out of his way and force herself to make eye contact without blushing and not make things awkward or give him any reason to think something was wrong.

Not that she’d managed to do that. Steve had picked up on the shift in her behavior right away—though, she had to imagine that yelling at him to put a shirt on hadn’t exactly been subtle. To his credit, he’d only asked her once if something was wrong; but he’d asked with a look of genuine concern and a hint of uncertainty that told her he was worried it was something he’d done.

So that was the worst part, Darcy had decided finally. She could deal with the high-def memories of incredibly satisfying sex she was never going to have if she could just get over who her subconscious had chosen for the starring role. She didn’t _want _to be awkward around Steve. She didn’t want to have to worry if she was standing too close to him in the kitchen or wonder if he’d _always _smelled so good or if he’d bought some new aftershave. Things like worrying about whether or not she could slide him slowly across the couch so she could sit down had not bothered her in almost three years. It wasn’t fair that one dream—even one really, _really_ good dream—should change all that.

But it had.

Or it was going to if she didn’t get a hold of herself soon.

The crash of a full caddy of silverware being dropped into the middle of the table jolted Darcy out of her spiral as Tina slid in beside her. Across the table, Tangie ripped into a fresh pack of napkins and passed around four even stacks.

“Don’t start the party without me,” Alice called, scurrying across the diner, untying her apron before she squeezed in next to Tangie.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Tina assured her dryly as they each reached for knives and forks, still hot from the dishwasher, to roll for the morning.

Darcy managed to roll three sets before she felt the weight of Tangie’s gaze and looked up to find her friend looking expectant. “What?” she asked, shooting for innocent.

Shooting and falling short, judging by the eyebrow quirked in her direction. “You gonna tell us?” she asked, not taking her hands off her rolling. “Or am I going to have to beat it out of you?”

“Don’t make her beat it out of you,” The sweet little voice of Tangie’s ten-year-old sister piped up from the next booth. “She’ll do it.”

“Camille, do your homework and mind your business,” Tangie said automatically before she returned her attention to Darcy. “But she’s right. I will do it.”

“Tell you what?” Darcy asked, reaching for another butter knife.

“What’s _up_?” Alice answered with an exasperated sigh. “You’ve been a mopey mess all week, girl,” she shook her head. “Seriously. What’s wrong?”

“I’m not letting you out of this booth until you talk,” Tina added, not bothering to look up from her napkins.

She opened her mouth and closed it again as her mind drew a blank. “It’s really stupid.”

“So what?” Tangie challenged. “It’s not like we’re ever talking about life and death around here.” When Darcy hesitated again, she felt the toe of Tangie’s worn-out Keds nudge her shin. “Did you and Steve have a fight or something?”

“No,” she shook her head. “Not a fight. I just did something stupid and am making things super awkward and I just—” she blew a breath through her lips and looked up in time to see Tangie and Alice exchange a look. “What? What is that? You don’t even know what happened yet.”

Alice shrugged. “Whatever it was, it was bound to happen eventually.”

“Which is not to say it isn’t still important,” Tina chimed in before she reached behind them to snag an ashtray from the next table. “Just that no one’s going to be surprised by whatever you tell us.”

Her face folded in confusion as she looked from one friend to the other, all shrugging or nodding in agreement. “And…what is it you think I’m going to say?”

The three of them exchanged looks again before Alice cleared her throat. “Well…” she rolled another wrap with the word before she looked up. “Since you said _you _did something stupid and made it awkward, I’m going to go ahead and guess that _you _blinked first and blurted out how you really feel about him the last time you two were—” Tangie’s elbow jammed hard into Alice’s ribs before she jerked her head to the back, reminding the four of them of the presence of her little sister. Alice coughed again. “Making soap.”

Darcy blinked. Her frown deepened. “Uh. No,” she said firmly. “That’s…not what happened.” She opened her mouth to continue before her decryption of Alice’s guess caught up with her.

“Soap.” Tangie repeated. “Really?”

Alice shrugged innocently. “They’re offering it for a Thursday class starting next month. I’ve had it on the brain.”

“And hang on—did you say _the last time_ we—” Darcy cut herself off. “Steve and I do not make soap.”

“Sure,” Tina shrugged beside her, abandoning her silverware for the moment while she pulled a cigarette from her pack of Virginia Slims and held it between her lips. “Not if you made everything awkward.”

“No,” Darcy shook her head. “Guys. Not like, we recently stopped because I made it weird. I mean we’ve _never _made soap.”

It was Tangie’s turn to look confused. “Never?” she asked. “Not once?”

“Not once,” Darcy repeated. “Our apartment is a soap-free zone.”

“That’s gross,” Camille spoke up. “Soap kills germs.”

Without turning around, Tangie reached a hand back and delivered a light swat to the top of Camille’s head. “So, you’re telling me that you’ve been _living_ with Adonis himself for how long?”

“Two and half years.”

“For _two and a half years_ and you’ve _never—”_

“No,” Darcy cut her off. “Why would we?”

She got three answers at once.

“Because you have eyes?!”

“You’re hot, he’s hot, it’s human nature.”

“Why _wouldn’t _you?”

She sat back. “Oh. Uh. Yeah, no. Sorry to disappoint. But no.” She frowned again and looked back to Alice. “And what do you mean I blinked first?”

“Well somebody had to,” Alice laughed. “It’s pretty obvious.” When Darcy lifted her eyebrows, waiting for Alice to continue, her friends exchanged another look and Alice’s smile faded. “Or…at least…it’s obvious to everyone else. I guess.”

“Considering you guys were completely wrong about my and Steve’s—uh, soap habits—” she faltered with a glance toward Camille who, mercifully, seemed to have gone back to her homework. “I’m going to guess you’re wrong about this too. And,” she held up a hand. “Before we go any further, I didn’t _say _anything. I just…” she rolled her eyes. “I had a dream about him and now I can’t look him in the eye.”

Beside her, Tina raised an eyebrow. “A soap dream?”

“No,” Darcy rolled her eyes. “A downhill skiing dream.”

Tina laughed as she exhaled her smoke away from the table. “I’m just making sure we’re all on the same page now.”

“Since we weren’t even reading the same _book _until a minute ago,” Tangie muttered around the clang and clatter of grabbing another handful of forks and knives. “Anyway—your dream?” she looked expectant. “Was it a good dream?”

Darcy’s blush betrayed her even as she fought to keep her lips in a firm line. “It was…fine.”

“Mmmhmm,” Tangie nodded. “I bet it was.”

She nudged her back under the table. “Oh, shut up. I didn’t bring this up so you guys could read into it like this,” she reminded herself out loud. “I told you, so you’d tell me I was being an idiot and get over it and go back to normal by the time I get home.”

Alice looked perplexed. “Why would we tell you that? You two are clearly feeling the same way about each other—stop being a baby and do something about it.”

“Please,” Tangie added.

“Put us out of our misery,” said Tina, her cigarette back between her lips as her hands rolled another set.

Darcy forced herself to laugh around the uncomfortable tightness in her chest. She wished she hadn’t brought this up—hadn’t let them drag anything out of her. “Sorry to disappoint, guys,” she said. “But nothing’s changed as far as how Steve and I feel about each other.”

“So, he’s still in love with you and you’re pretending you haven’t noticed yet?” Alice guessed, her tone a little too light for the way her words smashed into Darcy like a croquet mallet.

“Steve is not in love with me,” she assured the three of them and raised her voice over the predictable scoffs and sounds of disbelief. “He’s not!”

“Then why does he come and pick you up almost every night you work?” Tina asked.

“Because he’s nice!” Darcy exclaimed. “And he knows I’m kind of a pussy who doesn’t like walking home in the dark.”

Tangie rolled her eyes. “And what about last month? When he was in here for coffee and that guy grabbed your ass? And Steve followed him outside and almost broke his nose?”

“No, he _did _break that guy’s nose,” Darcy corrected, before she went on. “But listen, Steve _loves _punching sexist pigs, okay? Next to fascists, sexists are his absolute favorite thing to hit. He would have done that for any of you.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that that boy looks at you like he’d straight-up die for you.”

It was Darcy’s turn to roll her eyes at Tangie’s assessment. “That actually doesn’t mean that much when it comes to Steve,” she said, her chest a little lighter now that she knew for sure she was telling the truth. “The man has no sense of self-preservation and a total death wish. He’d die for a cocker spaniel.”

Alice shook her head. “Whatever you say, Darce.”

“No,” Darcy challenged. “Not whatever I say. Whatever I _know,_ okay? Steve has a very specific type and I am _not _it.”

Last she knew, Steve’s type was something along the lines of brown-eyed, British wonder-women he’d never have. Someone who could keep up with all his world-saving bullshit and not fight the urge to cry when she fired a gun.

But Tina was still smirking. “Just like he’s not your type, right?”

“Correct,” she answered without hesitation. “And if you’re planning on lining up a bunch of instances that you think prove otherwise—”

“Like when you blew half a paycheck to buy him that first-day-of-school present?” Alice asked.

“Or when he was in the hospital and you barely left his bedside for two weeks?” Tina reminded.

Darcy sighed. “This has to be the least helpful any of you have ever been.”

“We’re absolutely being helpful,” Tangie exclaimed, indignant. “You’re moping around because you’re acting like an idiot around Steve because your brain is finally sending you messages the rest of us have been picking up on for years—”

“And your solution to me being an awkward, sexually-frustrated mess around him is to what? Go home and tell Steve I’m in love with him in the hopes of making things _less _weird between the two of us?”

“Are you?” Tina demanded, turning to face her with wide eyes.

Darcy felt her mouth open to immediately dispute, but the words got stuck in her throat. “Well—no,” she said finally, after a croak of uncertainty. “I mean. I _love _him, obviously. Of course I do. But I’m not—” Her words failed her a second time. “He’s just—”

_My roommate_, she’d said a million times when they first arrived and everyone assumed they were a couple. _My friend_, she’d been able to say easily by the time she had to introduce him to June and Ray’s family at Thanksgiving. _My best friend_, she’d written on her list of positive things about being stuck in the 70s. _My Steve—_the latest title she’d bestowed upon him—when she’d come home drunk and tried to put a finger on why the idea of him being lonely bothered her so much.

But with the exception of that last one, none of these words felt right to describe what role Steve actually played in her life. But she couldn’t just blurt that out. Calling him _her _Steve aloud to anyone else would make it seem like she thought he belonged to her. That they belonged together. That there was a chance he’d started considering her _his _Darcy somewhere along the line.

And Darcy didn’t know what to do with that.

Before anyone could say another word, Ray shuffled out from the office, his end-of-the-day paperwork in hand. He stopped and assessed the room with a curious frown. “What’d I miss?”

“Darcy’s in love with Steve,” Camille said plainly, breaking the spell that had fallen over the table.

Darcy groaned and dropped her head into her arms as Tangie turned all the way around and gave her sister a look to accompany a crisp snap of her fingers when she pointed to her textbook. Ray laughed and continued to the register. “Tell me something I don’t know, honey,” he said cheerfully to Camille.

“_Et-tu,_ Ray?” Darcy asked, her voice muffled by her arms, her cheeks burning.

She heard Ray laugh a second time. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” the bell of the front door jingled as it opened. “I didn’t know it was a secret.”

“Didn’t know what was a secret?”

Darcy’s head shot up at the sound of Steve’s voice. She turned around in the booth, surprised to see him standing just inside the door, shaking water from his leather jacket. “What are you doing here?” she asked, praying her blush had disappeared in her surprise.

Steve shrugged. “It’s pouring,” he motioned to the storm raging on the other side of the windows. “And I was in the neighborhood. Thought you’d rather drive home than walk.”

“Oh,” she nodded. “Uh—”

“She would!” Tina said cheerfully. “She was just saying how she didn’t want to walk home in this.” Before Darcy could protest—and she wouldn’t have, she told herself—Tina had slid out from the booth and was tugging her arm to get her to do the same.

She climbed out of the booth and grabbed her coat and purse from the next table. “Goodnight,” she said tightly. “I’ll see you guys later.”

“Darcy?” Her heart froze as she turned around to find Camille had turned in her booth and was up on her knees, grinning despite all the warning in her sister’s glare.

“Yes?”

“You guys should try making soap,” she said with an encouraging nod. “It’s probably really fun.”

Darcy’s cheeks burned again as Alice tried unsuccessfully to hide a snort and Tina started coughing so hard her cigarette fell from her hand and scattered ash across the floor. “Goodnight!” she repeated, raising her voice over the din before scurrying toward the front of the diner where Steve, looking somewhere between confused and entertained, held the door for her.

“What the hell was that about?” he asked after they’d safely made it into the car.

Darcy shook her head and laughed. “I don’t know,” she lied. “She’s ten. Kids are weird.” She glanced over at him as he started the car. “How were parent-teacher conferences?”

He nodded. “Uh, also weird,” he said. “Because kids are definitely weird and so is talking to their parents about their potential.”

She smiled despite the way her stomach had started twisting as soon as she’d heard his voice. “Even when they don’t have that much?”

“_Especially_ when they don’t have that much.” He reached into the interior pocket of his coat at the light and, without looking her direction, passed her a chocolate bar.

She took it, confused. “What’s this for?”

“You’ve been kind of weird lately,” he said, signaling before he turned left toward their hill. “And I checked before I went to work this morning—your emergency chocolate stash was down to the semi-sweet chocolate chips so…” he shrugged.

Darcy pressed her lips together, smothering down a smile. “You thought I needed some chocolate?”

“I have no idea what you need,” Steve admitted, finally looking over with a small, shy smile at the corner of his lips. “But I figured chocolate can’t hurt, right?”

She slipped the chocolate bar into her coat and tucked her hair behind her ears, keeping her eyes on her lap, where her fingers twisted and tangled with each other. “Thank you,” she said softly. “I’m um…I’m sorry. That I’ve been acting so weird.”

“It’s okay,” he said evenly, returning his eyes to the road, making Darcy wonder if it really wasokay, or if her behavior had been eating at him the way it had her. “But you’d tell me if there was something I could do, right?”

An all-too vivid memory of the way he’d flipped her onto his bed and torn her clothes off flashed inconveniently in her mind. “Yeah,” she said and coughed into her hand. “Yeah, of course I would.”

They’d only been home a few minutes before Darcy decided something was wrong with Steve. He wasn’t acting like himself. He seemed nervous; a little too on edge to blame it all on lingering stress from conferences with his students’ parents. It did nothing for the butterflies in her own stomach. The ones that had started flapping their wings in earnest when her friends had started talking at work—telling her things that couldn’t possibly be true. Making her wonder what she’d do or how she’d feel if there was even a chance that they were right.

She stepped out of her shoes and forced herself to speak. “Steve?”

He looked up from where he’d been flipping aimlessly through the mail on the kitchen table. “Yeah?’

“Can we—um—” she pursed her lips. “I have to talk to you about something.”

She wasn’t expecting the relief that crossed his expression. It made her heart pound harder and cemented the realization that she had no idea what she was going to say. Tell him the truth, be embarrassed and tell him she was scared something had changed between them? Tell him what Tangie and Alice and Tina thought? That they were in love with each other and too stubborn to admit it?

What if he laughed? 

_What if he didn’t?_

“I have to talk to you about something too,” he said, surprising her.

That didn’t help her palpitations. She felt her mouth run dry as she nodded and motioned to the living room. “Should we sit?”

He nodded and sat down on the couch beside her, looking like he was fighting the urge to fidget. He took a deep breath. “So…what’s up?”

Darcy shook her head. “No, no, I don’t know how to say what I want to say,” she admitted. “You go first. Let me buy some time.”

Steve nodded a second time and clasped his hands together. “I think I know where Bucky is—and where he’s going to be. And I think I can find him and get him out.”

Darcy blinked. Of everything she thought he might want to tell her—everything that could have filled him with this unusually nervous energy—she hadn’t dreamed it might be about Bucky. “Oh,” she managed when it became clear Steve expected her to say something. “That’s…um…how—”

As Steve launched into the records Natasha had stolen once, about how he’d committed to memory every assassination that had been linked to Bucky, every unexplained murder that he’d carried out over his time as the Winter Soldier, Darcy felt those butterflies drop one by one like lead in her belly. She did her best to listen, did her best not to feel so incredibly stupid. Because while she’d been fantasizing about things like love bites on her neck and bruises on her hips and thighs, Steve had been working. He had been going over every mission report he’d ever memorized, writing out every detail he could recall, trying to locate and rescue his best friend from a fate worse than death. Steve had been trying to make use of their predicament—trying to match up known assassinations with dates and times he could still intervene.

And he’d found one. According to the Hydra file he’d memorized when SHIELD had first dissolved, Bucky had been sent to Los Angeles on January 19, 1973 to kill Senator Harry Baxtor. The senator was found with a single gunshot wound to the head, floating face-down in his hotel pool on January 21st which gave Steve forty-eight hours to locate and extract Bucky before he carried out his mission.

All Darcy could do was nod along as he went over his plan—tell him that this was unbelievably lucky, and of course she agreed that he had to go. Had to at least try. Because it _was _and she _did_—especially if he was successful. Bringing Bucky home was the only thing Steve had wanted for years; she felt like an idiot having forgotten that—for being surprised by this.

She didn’t tell him it would be dangerous. That she’d already started worrying about him. That he shouldn’t go alone. Because she knew that Steve knew all those things already. He’d known them long before he decided to go and long before he decided to tell her. No matter what she said, he was going anyway. And he was excited about it. He was happy to have this mission, she realized. Happy to return to this piece of his old life. It was a smack from reality—a sharp reminder of who he used to be. The soldier. The leader. The rescuer. A man she didn’t know at all.

It felt like hours, but it really could have only been a few minutes before he stopped talking and let out another breath. It was an excited, energized exhale. Like he’d gotten something off his chest and felt better—the breath that chases after big, exciting news. “Okay,” he said, turning to her. “Your turn. What did you want to tell me?”

She opened her mouth to speak before she looked up, but the words dissolved on her tongue like cotton candy the second her eyes met his. What had seemed like a sweet what if only an hour ago felt hopelessly impossible now. Things that she’d thought she could tell him—things she’d only just realized she’d been hoping he’d say first—they didn’t make sense anymore. Because with this reminder of who Steve used to be came the ugly reminder of who they’d both be again.

They were only pretending here. These identities. These jobs. These friends. This…whatever was between them. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t last. At some point, they’d go home—to their own places in time. He’d go back to being Captain America and she’d go back to being Darcy Lewis: rootless, restless and with half her heart missing. She’d have to wait ten years to even be able to see him again.

She blinked, forcing a laugh from somewhere around the pain in her chest. “I um—” she shook her head. “I can’t remember.”

The phone rang, startling them both before Steve could say anything else. She waited until he got up to answer it before she retreated to her room and closed her door. Leaning against it, she let her chin drop to her chest as she squeezed her eyes shut. “You fucking idiot,” she whispered.

She wasn’t sure if she was talking to the idiot in the kitchen, about to chase after a man who could—and would try to—kill him without a second thought when he got in the way of his mission…

Or the idiot in the mirror who’d only just realized that she’d fallen in love with her best friend.

**Author's Note:**

> Come play with me on tumblr: @idontgettechnology and join me at ishipitpod.com for weekly podcast on fandom and fanfic by yours truly.
> 
> *kisses*


End file.
